ISBN 978-602-17688-9-1
MEDIA LITERACY AND INFORMATION COMPETENCE OF AISYIYAH EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION TEACHERS IN
BANDUNG TOWARDS THE GLOBAL ERA
Tia Muthiah Umar, Aziz TaufikHirzi, Zulfebriges
Universitas Islam Bandung, Indonesia
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to describe knowledge and skill about media literacy and information of Aisyiyah Early Childhood Education teachers. The main issue of this study is the importance of availability of early childhood education teachers who have competence in media literacy and information. Considering the rapid growth of communication information technology that drives the growth of new mass media and social media that can give contra productive influence to the society especially children. The content of mass media and social media that have been produced irresponsibly ought to propel the society to become aware of the damage it can cause. The closest society for children is their teacher. Teachers in global era are demanded to be more competent in mastering mass media to optimize the function of their profession to guide the children on being wary in using new mass media and social media. Concept of this study refers to media literacy Empowering8. According to this model, information literacy contains skills to: 1) identify the topic/subject, targeted audience, relevant form, source type. 2) Explore relevant source and information for the topic. 3) Select and record relevant information and collect suitable quotes. 4) Represent, spread, and deliver the outcome of the information. This research uses descriptive quantitative method. The purpose is to describe media literacy and information competence of Aisyiah Early Childhood Education teachers in Bandung with total of 89 teachers.
The result of data analyst is quite unexpected because almost all dimension of media literacy have high level of median. Therefore, further research that uses unobtrusive method is needed in order to strengthen the previous result of research that used self-report method.
Keywords: Aisyiyah, Global Era, Early Childhood Education Teacher, Media Literacy and Information Competence.
INTRODUCTION
race of globalization has been stormed in various aspects of community life. Using help of mass media technology that day by day is increasing fast with various of types.
The tendency of most people on spending time with the mass media is to fulfill their enjoyment especially among children. They cannot control the choice and selection on using their time with the media, so there are quite many cases of children having a decrease of their academic achievement and also committing deviant behavior.
The issue has become a challenge for teachers. How to be responsible to their students that are born in an atmosphere of all-digital, but the children have not been able to realize the negative aspects of what they do. Meanwhile, teachers are generally considered in category of people who grasp the media lately, while the tasks to perform of media literacy and information cannot be postponed.
A
ISBN 978-602-17688-9-1
Alongside the growth of media and information literacy movement the teachers should be prior in having competence in that regard. Teachers should be able to guide their students to become capable of positioning themselves properly in front of the media, so the media could be a friend who can meet the needs of information and education for children, not just a friend to share something fun and unproductive and even tend to be destructive. Media literacy skill is very important for the future of individuals and as members of a democratic society. (2009: 18)
In international range, we are able to obtain the documents containing ideas and strategies of media literacy such as Declaration on Media Education-UNESCO, 1982 which proclaims to the authorities to develop training for teachers and education actors (intermediaries) to improve the knowledge and understanding of the media and train them with proper teaching methods, which take into account the knowledge of media ownership is still fragmentary for the students. It is already being implemented in Brazil, Chile and Venezuela in the 1980s and 1990s education to achieve media literacy among teachers in the school and community leaders.
DISCUSSION
Media and Information Literacy Competency,The conceptual framework that is used to measure the competence of media and information literacy of teachers are referring to the descriptive data is considered prospective for this movement. Empowering 8 is the concept of media literacy referrals using a problem solving approach in the form of resource-based learning which is an ability to learn based on its data source. The model of literacy is derived from two workshops which are Colombo in 2004 and Patiala- India in 2005. According to this model, the information literacy consists of the ability to: 1) Identify the topic / subject, target audience, relevant formats, the types of resources; 2) explores the sources and information that corresponds to the topic; 3) Selecting and recording the relevant information and appropriate quotations, and 4) present, distribute or to inform the result of information..
The Teachers as Media and Information Literacy Activits,inUndang-UndangRI No. 14, 2005 about Teachers and Lecturers is stated that the teachers are professional educators with the primary task of educating, teaching, guiding, directing, training, assessing, and evaluating students on early childhood education, formal education, primary education, and secondary education.
The duty of educators is to help students to be able to adapt to the challenges of life as well as the insistence that developed within their selves. Competence of educators, are unanimity of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that in form of intelligent and fully responsible actions in performing the duties as learning agent. (2013: 15)
Aisyiah as Early Childhood Education Providers, aisyiyah is the oldest Muslim women mass organization in Indonesia, established in 27 rajab 1335 H, coinciding May 19th1917 M, with one of its pillars is a movement to eradicate stupidity, proven in 1919, Aisyiyahpioneeredanearly education for children called Frobel, which was the first kindergarten established by Indonesian nation. Later on, kindergarten’s name isuniformed as Kindergarten AisyiyahBustanulAthfal (TK ABA), which now has 5,865 kindergartens throughout Indonesia. In Bandung itself there are 24 TK ABA spread almost in every district.
As many of 24 TK ABA spread almost in every districts in Bandung city, the first one established was in 1958 in Lengkongdistrictand the newest one was established in 2006 in Kiaracondong district, the most recent data statedthat the number of teachers are more than a hundred people and the number of students are more than a thousand student.
Beside educational institutions, in 1926, Aisyiyah also has information media that began to publish an organization magazine called“SuaraAisyiyah”, which in the beginning of its publishing it was using Javanese language. Through this monthly magazine Aisyiyah communicate all programs and activities, including information and media literacy programs to its members.
Analysis of Media and Information Literacy Competency Teachers in Early Childhood Education of Aisyiyah. Researchers are interested in examining the level of media competence ofAisyiyahBusthanulAthfalKindergarten teachers as professionals in the field of early childhood
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education in Bandung city, given the existence of an institution that is quite massive spread almost in all areas of Bandung city, with fantastic number of kindergartens, which is 24 kindergarten belongs to one organization, Aisyiyah.
Almost every teacher in TK ABA is women with percentage of 97.75%, and only 1.12% is male. It is understood as an attempt to adjust to the conditions that early childhood children still needs care and motherly approach. In fact in all kindergartens in the Bandung city there is no male teacher, except for the skill coaches and arts that is not permanent.
The majority of teacher in TK ABA has bachelor degree with percentage of 76.40% while the rest of high school educated, D1, D2, and D3 which is 23.60%. The data shows that AisyiyahBusthanulAthfalkindergantenhas most of its teachers have fulfilled the qualification as prescribed by the regulations. Indeed, early childhood education is the foundation for building character and knowledge, which in essence should be facilitated by professionalhuman resource that has the qualifications. So far there is an opinion among common societiesthat early childhood educatorsdoes not need to be conducted by highly educated professionals, as if the early childhood is the object education which is not more important at all than students of other higher levels. This phenomenon is inversely proportional to the concept of education in the state of Finland which requires the teachers of early childhood to have a higher educational background.
To determine the media activity of teachers, found that most of them already have an email account in the range of 1 to 3 years. Only 9.96% of respondents have an email account for less than one year, meanwhile respondents who have email accounts between 1-3 years is as much as 32.58%
and the email accounts of more than 3 years as much as 29.21%. However, 29.21% of respondents did not answer. It is not certain whether the respondents who did not answer have or donot have an email account. Duration of the ownership will affect their habits in using the online media and social media.
Based on confession from respondents, their media activities is almost 80% always connected to the internet, It is rather surprising considering that their media activity budget are only 30 thousand to 60 thousand rupiah per month in average. So the researchers presume that respondents are likely to use available facilities of free Wi-Fi internet that currently easy to be found in many public places.
Meanwhile respondents as Facebook users are less than 20%, majority of respondentsup to 46.06% did not answer whether they have Facebook account or not. These data shows that more teachers have email than Facebook. The percentage of respondents who did not answer the question about the duration of email accounts ownership and Facebook is much greater than respondents who did not answer questions about gender and education. Researchers did not speculate whether it means that the respondents do not have yet those two accounts.
On the question about device ownership, founded that a combination of mobile phones, tablets, and personal computers were the main tools used by respondents to obtain information that is 40.44%, far exceeding other media combinations. TV, radio, newspaper, and internet 12.36%, the combined PC and conventional media amounted to 17.98%, and the remaining 21.34%. Ease of Internet access provided by the server makes a mobile internet and PC / tablet as a device that many are connected to with the virtual world plus the portability of the device that is easy to carry to anywhere.
Most respondents only do occasional activities of media online is 42.69%, while frequent and always are each 15.73% and 5.62%. The percentage of those who rarely perform online media activity is quite muchof 22.47%. The interesting thing, though there were a small percentage of 3.37% of the respondents who have never done the activity of online media. It is unknown why there is a small of AisyiyahBusthanulAfthalkindergarten teachers who have never done it before.
In the identification aspect, to the category of respondents who have bachelor degree, 38 respondents (the majority) answered that they are agree to clarify the issue before they search for information in cyberspace. There are 15 respondents who did not answer and 13 respondents who answered strongly agree. While respondents with high school educated, D1, and D2, also agree about the same question. It appears that for all education background levelofteachers at TK AisyiyahBusthanulAthfalthemajority agree that they clarify the issue before searching for information.
In explorationaspect,to the category of respondents who have bachelor degree, 38 respondents answered thet they are agree on the question in terms of the use of information from authoritative, novelty, and accuracy sides. Meanwhile neutral and strongly agree answers are from 7 respondents.
ISBN 978-602-17688-9-1
Respondents who did not answer are 13 people. It is interesting enough that there are 6 respondents from all levels of education who answered disagree.
For bachelor degree category, there are nearly equal numbers that are 13 and 15 respondents who did not answer the question asked by the researcher. This figure was again unable to show whether the respondents answered in the negative or positive continuum of a range of responses. For questions about the relevance, credibility and accuracy of the information the majority of respondents who answered agree are 37 and 10 answered strongly agree. So are of the respondents who are educatedat high school education up to diploma.
In the aspect of selection,that S1 educated respondents answered agree there are 34 respondents, 15 answered strongly agreed, and 13 respondents did not answer. The other fraction (bachelor degree and under) also answered in the positive range. This means that most of the respondents consider that it is necessary to evaluate, sort, and select the information that they obtained in the virtual world.
In presentation aspect, most of respondents agreed to redistribute the information searchedbyuploading it to the internet via blogs, Facebook, twitter, etc. (43.2%), books, articles, journals, reports, etc. (44.94%), also orally by word of mouth (47.19%) to students or colleagues. It appears realistic that oral culture is more prominent than the written culture, according to the nature of society in general.
CONCLUSION
The total score of 4 aspects studied (identification, exploration, selection and presentation) showed that the level of media literacy and information of early childhood teachers at TK Aisyiyah Busthanul Athfal Bandung are based on the concept of Empowering 8 high rate majority. For identification aspect of media literacy and information competence score for high category that is 62.92% and moderate score is 17.98%. Exploration aspect score for high categories and moderate are each 59.55%
and 23.59%. Selection aspecthigh score is 59.55% and moderate score is 19.10%. Last is presentation aspect, score for high category amount is 47.19% and moderate score is 29.21%. Based on the median calculation, aspect of media and information literacy of respondents from identification, exploration, and selection has a median score of 3 out of the range of values 1-3, except for the presentation aspect, respondents had a median score of 2.
Overall it could be concluded that the level of media literacy and information of Kindergarten teachers at TK Aisyiyah Busthanul Athfal Bandung has high category.
Based on the findings of the data above, it can be delivered that professional human resources in the field of early childhood education, which is owned by Aisyiyah organizations in the city have met the necessary qualifications. It is rightly encouraging for Aisyiyah organization whose existence has established itself in the field of education.
Taking into account that competence in the field of media literacy and information held by the teachers were high, then the respondent potentially can guide their students to skillfully position themselves properly before the new mass media and social media, a skill which is needed by all people in this global era.
However, because this is a self-report method research, then the results of these findings still need to be examined further in unobtrusive method, to prove the suitability of the research findings with reality as expected, so it really can be expected that professional competence of media literacy and information of kindergarten teachers in the Bandung can optimallyplay a positive role in assisting their students to be able to be tough in facing the globalization era.
ISBN 978-602-17688-9-1
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